Searching EBSCOhost: Natural Language Searching

Scope

• Natural Language Searching allows the user to query the database using words, phrases or even complete sentences.
• The capability is available on most EBSCOhost databases.
• The results of a Natural Language query are presented in ranked order with the most relevant article being presented first.
• A result can be found even if the record does not contain all of the words from the query.
• The more of the search words that appear in an article, the more relevant the record is and the closer to the top of the Result List it will appear.

To search

• Click on the Natural Language icon of the toolbar to do Natural Language search.
• Enter your phrase or sentence in the entry field.

Example

• Typing rising "medical costs in the United States" will find articles that contain all or any combination of the words "rising," "medical," "costs," "United" and/or "States".

Stop words

• Words that are not searched on include:
  • Boolean operators
  • Prepositions such as: of, in ,
  • Articles such as: a, an, the

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